> Every European nation state is built around ethnicity as the bedrock of society.

What do you mean by it being the bedrock of society? I haven't found ethnicity to be an important part about being a citizen here at all.

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kuschku 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are congruent.

The traditional view taught in history books is as follows:

> Before the french revolution, states extended as far as their kings' military power allowed them to, and the king derived his claim to power from god.

> After the french revolution, states formed around the concept of a common shared ethnicity, language, and culture (nation), with the claim to power deriving from the people.

> This shared national identity was instrumental to the unification of many separate kingdoms into the German confederation.

EDIT: That view is not necessarily correct (see the comments below), but it is what most people will have learnt in school

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	▲	FabCH 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		YSK: This is a disputed view. Wether nation comes first, or the state, is something academic historians don’t agree on. While it sort-of fits if you limit it to France, it breaks down even when you cross the border to Germany. Three different countries speak German as their official language, and Germany itself wasn’t really a nation-state until Nazism. It was a multi-ethnic empire before that, and a bunch of random kingdoms and ducheys before that. And after 1945, it was not a nation-state either, since it was somewhat famously 2 states.